By Kang Hyun-kang
Japan’s weakened position in territorial disputes with China and Russia over the past 10 years have made Tokyo more aggressive in pursuing its claim over South Korea’s easternmost islets, Dokdo, an expert said Friday.
During a seminar hosted by the state-run think tank, the Northeast Asian History Foundation, Nam Sang-gu, a senior researcher, said that Japan has been frustrated by the two big neighbors in their conflicting maritime sovereignty claims, causing it to find an outlet with Dokdo.
Nam’s claim comes on the same day the Japanese government repeated its claim that the islets belong toJapan in this year’s Blue Book, an annual report published by its foreign ministry explaining its policy and positions.
Korean officials call the Blue Book together with Japan’s history textbooks and Defense White Paper “a package of three” aimed at defending distorted claims.
Japan has long-running spats with Russia and China over the disputed Kuril Islands, and Senkaku or Daioyu Islands in the East China Sea, respectively.
Nam said Russia is unlikely to tone down its claim over the four Kuril Islands stretching north across the Pacific Ocean from the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the southern tip of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula when Vladimir Putin takes office in the coming months.
“If Russia shows no signs of backing off from its position on the islands, prospects for the territorial dispute to be settled will remain foggy,” Nam predicted.
The Kurils have been the subject of a dispute between the two nations for nearly 60 years.
In 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev visited the islands for the first time as a Russian leader, leading to heightened tensions between the two sides.
“The Japanese public came to be wary of diplomatic spats with neighboring states after their government and China clashed over the maritime boundary near the uninhabited Senkaku or Daioyu Islands in the East China Sea,” Nam said.
The expert argued the series of disputes with the neighboring countries made the Japanese public wary of territorial rows and the sentiment made Tokyo stand firmer on Dokdo.
The history foundation issued a statement urging Japan to scrap its claim over the islets.
In the statement, the think tank said Dokdo islets “can be seen with the naked eye” from Ulleungdo, 217 kilometers north of Pohang City, to indicate its vicinity to South Korea can be evidence that it is part of its territory.
The Dokdo lslets are located 87.41 kilometer southeast of the island.
Presenting findings of his recently released book tentatively titled “60 Years on Dokdo and Korea’s Territorial Sovereignty,” Bae Chin-soo, another senior fellow of the history foundation, said Japan has ratcheted up its claim over the islets through its diplomatic, defense and security authorities and local governments.